One click is all it takes. (Samsung Digimax S850)

Member Name: Lunah_C

Product:	Samsung Digimax S850
Date:	06/07/07 (282 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, lots of features, low price.

Disadvantages: No case included.

The first thing that impressed me about this Camera was the price. At £100, all but a penny for an 8.1 mpix camera I had to take a closer look. The Camera usually retails around £150, but is currently on offer was on offer at Argos in their Spring/end of Catalogue sale.

After a quick search online for reviews and price comparisons I knew I was getting a good deal and I had previously owned a Samsung 35mm camera which I had always been impressed with so had no qualms regarding the make so went ahead and bought the camera.



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Opening up the well packaged box I pulled out my shiny new camera.

Firstly I noted how light the camera was but then I was comparing to one of the early Digitals that were more like bricks. The Camera weighs around 170g. If you want an idea of roughly what this is I found that my pack of 6 Dairylea Triangles was just a couple of grams less!

It was also much smaller than I was used to measuring 10x6.5x2.5cms. This is slightly larger than some of the slimline ones but I do like to know that I have a camera in my hand otherwise I have the habit of just letting go.

It has a large 2.5 inch LCD display so you get a good look at the scene you are hoping to capture. It is also great for play back and in deciding which photos to keep or not.

The camera has a 5x optical zoom and 5 x digital zoom. This means that I can zoom into objects at some distance without losing the quality and with the macro feature I can go up to 10cms of an item to photograph it.

To enhance these you can alter the shutter speeds (going up to 1/2000) and ISO (up to 1600) and alter the levels of light needed to be able to take the perfect picture. This can be done three modes, Program, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority. Personally speaking this does not mean much more to me than I have just mentioned and I will probably just rely on the auto features, but what I do like is that you have the options of having it all automated (Auto mode), even doing all the focusing for you, partly by using one of the modes above, or setting all of the levels manually (Manual mode), which is great for keen photographers who really know what they are doing. However it does give amateurs the chance to have a go and you can set it to one of eleven scene settings such as Fireworks, Sunset and Snow where it helps you to get the right balance of light for the faultless photo. Other common photographic situations it is programmed are Children, where you can take a picture where the subject is bound to be moving and portrait which allows you to bring the subject into focus whilst to bring the subject into strong focus whilst not bringing to attention whatever is in the background.

The Camera has nine modes to choose from. One I particularly like is the ASR mode. At the bottom of the camera is a tripod Socket but just incase you don’t have one to hand you can use this mode which helps to reduce camera shake and image blur during longer exposures and in situations where holding the camera steady is impossible.

Two of the other modes are a voice recording mode and a movie making mode. I’m not that sure I will use the Voice Recording that much since I’m not into blackmail or spying, though I think it is actually so you can add clips to your pictures, but having a movie mode was a must on my new camera. I can’t afford a camcorder but wanted to have the ability to capture those special moments. The Camera takes a SD memory card up to 4Gb, which would allow you to lengthen the time you can record but even with just the 20Mb of internal memory that the camera has you can record for just under a minute if there is nothing else in the memory. This might not sound long but it is surprising what children can do in such a short time. With just images you can get between 7 and 50 on this internal memory depending on the settings. This would increase if you inserted an SD card with the amount depending on the size but expect around 100 for each Gb on the card.

The last mode is the play mode. This allows you to view your pictures or movies, or listen to those secret talks! You can either do this manually or watch in slide show mode which can be altered to watch with effects and with or without a choice of music.

One good thing is that the pictures can be edited in play mode without needing a computer. They can be turned, cropped and be resized if you like.

This Camera has other special effects that can also be included in your photography. As well as adding frames or other objects into your picture, or splitting the screen to combine multiple images into a single file so you can change the picture so that it is stored in negative form, sepia, black and white or a tone of red, blue or green. All the Special effects can be easily accessed by simply clicking on the E button and then scrolling up and down through the options.

Like most Cameras it also has a red eye reduction feature and the ability to turn the flash on and off. You can also choose whether to have the date or date and time in your image or not. There are probably still other features that I have not mentioned but I guess I will discover over time. The Camera comes with a quick set up guide and software to install on your PC. It also has a manual that explains all its features in full. I must admit I have not read this fully yet since it was very easy to operate as most of its functions are self explanatory.

It takes two AA alkaline or Rechargeable batteries. The life of them seems to be average, but of course will go down quicker if you are using the zoom feature a lot.

It connects to the Computer or Printer (Pictbridge enabled) via a USB lead. You can also connect it to a television to view your images. The lead for this is also included.

Altogether I think it is excellent value for money and I think my only complaint would be that there is no case included, although this is available separately. But until you do buy one you would need to protect your camera since the screen could easily get marked or scratched.

Summary: Feature packed comapct digital camera.

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